As some of you may have been following, over the past couple of weeks, a defense contractor (Trijicon Inc., Wixom, MI) which sells weapons to the military, and in this case rifle sights has come under fire for stamping bible verses on their weapons that troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and other nations where American boys and girls are actively fighting in, have stamped on them. Around 1/3 of a million rifle sights have been made for this military, and its deployment.

Upon learning of this Gen. David Petraeus (head military dude in charge in the middle east) said it was "disturbing". The US military is barred from preaching, proselytizing, or even trying to convert Iraqis or Afghanis due to the religious sensitivity issue.

An official spokesman for the US military had been claiming, that "the Trijicon sights didn't violate the ban" and was akin to the term "In God We Trust" on US coinage. Needless to say this set the FOX news pinheads a gaga with insipid, childish, retorts.

As Steve Doocey from Fox News said on the Bible rifles...."If Anybody's Making This A Religious Thing, The Terrorists 'Started It".

Did the gov't contract mandate these messages be put on the weapons? No, then why did the contractor do it?

If I hire someone to paint my house and give him specific details on how I want it done I expect him to follow my directive. I won't accept his decision to paint whatever he likes without checking with me first. So the gov't wants them to stop putting Biblical references on their rifles because they are paying for those rifles. If the gov't instructs the contractor topaint the rifles bright orange and pay for bright orange rifles then the contractor has no choice but do what the gov't wants.

Quoting Homer71 (Reply 2):Looks like the contractor will be removing the "offending" stamps.

Gee I wonder why?

The Marine Corps, another major customer of the telescoping sights that allow troops to pinpoint targets day or night, says service acquisition officials plan to meet with the contractor, Trijicon of Wixom, Mich., to discuss future purchases of the company's gear.

Translation: knock this stuff off before it motivates the enemy more than they already are.

Mikey Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, says the Trijicon sights could give the Taliban and other enemy forces a propaganda tool: that American troops are Christian crusaders invading Muslim countries.

"I don't have to wonder for a nanosecond how the American public would react if citations from the Quran were being inscribed onto these U.S. armed forces gun sights instead of New Testament citations," Weinstein said.

Quoting Cgnnrw (Reply 3):Did the gov't contract mandate these messages be put on the weapons? No, then why did the contractor do it?

Hell no. It's illegal. The company or its managers have personal views that they wanted reflected in their products. The Yahoo article says the founder of the company began the practice. Their attitude on the issue is plainly dumb:

Trijicon said it has been longstanding company practice to put the Scripture citations on the equipment. Tom Munson, Trijicon's director of sales and marketing, said the company has never received any complaints until now.

"We don't publicize this," Munson said in a recent interview. "It's not something we make a big deal out of. But when asked, we say, 'Yes, it's there.'"

Why would it even be necessary? Just keep going to Church if you love Scripture so much. Not sure how Jesus would feel about it being inscribed on weapons anyhow.

"I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."

It is an inspirational passage, meant to comfort those going into danger.

That's not the only passage in use..

The Trijicon Reflex sight is stamped with 2COR4:6, a reference to part of the second letter of Paul to the Corinthians: "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ"

Personally I'm glad the USMC and whomever else has moved quickly to get these morons to stop putting these on their products. I also feel it's irresponsible of the media to report stories like these since they don't have any bearing on anything on domestic soil but read badly abroad.

If you need someone to blame / throw a rock in the air / you'll hit someone guilty

Seems like the company is idiotic for doing it in the first place, seeing it broke the law.

You know that whole separation of church and state thing and all, is moot just so long as its of dubious xtian background. What about our fighting men and women who are Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Atheist, or other?

Would the reaction from Christians be "hey it's an inspirational message" if it had been Sura 2:193 from the Qur'an? How can anyone for a moment think that stamping the teachings of a pacifist like Jesus on a weapon of war to slaughter others is ok? Talk about WWJD moment some Christians need to take is an understatement.

I'd bet $100 this guy's true motivation for adding scripture to his company's weapons is to soothe his conscience about claiming to be a "devout Christian" while making instruments of war. The owner Glyn Bindon, crashed and died in an airplane accident a few years ago near get this.... "Gunsight Mountain". LOL. Karma.

Drop that righteous hammer of God! Relative is in the suck and wrote Ps. 23:4 on the stock of his rifle. I guess it was a slow news day. I own two Trijicon (reflex) and have no plans to not give them my business in the future.

Quoting Scorpio (Reply 9):..and people still wonder why many Muslims think the current wars are in fact wars against their religion, by Christians. With shit like this, no wonder...

Oh puhleez. Gimme a friggin break. Those SOB's declared holy war long before some contracting agency decided to print a harmless bible verse on the back of a damn rifle scope. It should not have been printed there, but if these religious fanatics think it is holy war, we DID NOT give them that idea, so stop blaming everything on religion.

Personally, I do, because that's not part of the mission, to spread the word of Jesus. Leave that to the Church, not the military.

Quoting FuturePilot16 (Reply 12):Oh puhleez. Gimme a friggin break. Those SOB's declared holy war long before some contracting agency decided to print a harmless bible verse on the back of a damn rifle scope.

So two wrongs make a right, eh? Again, this isn't about which faith is better-it's about people over their perverting their fath, and killing in the Name of Allah. Should we reciprocate by killing in the name of Jesus Christ? I don't think so.

Why? I'd say just the opposite. Don't forget that the media is a business like any other. They're there to make money. I'd say this is certainly "newsworthy", in the sense that it brings exposure to media outlets.

If it causes a problem when it's reported, then I'd say the company was idiotic for putting it on there in the first place. You never know what might get noticed.

Quoting FuturePilot16 (Reply 12):Oh puhleez. Gimme a friggin break. Those SOB's declared holy war long before some contracting agency decided to print a harmless bible verse on the back of a damn rifle scope.

How about I don't 'give you a friggin' break'? Yes, religious fanatics declared holy war years ago. But the West, including the U.S., have gone out of their way to DENY that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are faught for religious reasons, or are wars against Islam. This is met with a lot of skepticism by many Muslims, including the moderate ones who we NEED on our side if we want a passing chance of ever winning the struggle against fanaticism. Skepticism which in the past has already been fueled by such things as Bush's 'crusade' remark, or the SecDef spicing up his reports on the war with Bible verses.

Now this crap comes along, and it's not going to help the cause one bit. I don't give a damn what the fanatics on the other side think about these verses, but we SHOULD care what the moderate Muslims think about this, because it's precisely things like this which can push a few more over to the fanatical side. And we don't need that.

Although I see your point and I understand the idea .... in my opinion the verses are not on the scopes to prove Christianities superiority to Islam. And I will be honest ...if a person ( Muslim) does not understand that we are not "fighting against Islam" then what can we ever do to prove the point.?

When we hear the extremists say " America is attacking Islam" what does that even mean ? If we were going to attack Islam .... what would we do ? I really do not think a attack on Islam would be anything like our forces are doing now . Its ridiculous to even worry about a perception that we are attacking Islam ... think about it. It is a propaganda ploy by them to instill caution and fear in us ... I reject it ..totally.

Many of our troops gather and pray everyday before they go out on missions ... I guess this could be used in AQ propaganda as well.

Quoting AGM100 (Reply 19):in my opinion the verses are not on the scopes to prove Christianities superiority to Islam.

Never said they were, but that IS how they will be used by extremists to try and convince moderates that this is a war against Islam, not just against the radicals. And in combination with Bush calling it a crusade, and the SecDef spicing up his report with Bible verses, it's not exactly a surprise that quite a few Muslims are at least very skeptic about what these wars are about...

Quoting AGM100 (Reply 19):Its ridiculous to even worry about a perception that we are attacking Islam ... think about it.

I don't care what the radicals think, but I do care what the moderates think, because if they start being convinced this is an attack against their whole religion (and crap like this isn't exactly going to help to convince them otherwise) then we have an even more serious problem on our hands.

I wonder how many military members actually noticed it? I hadn't even noticed it until someone pointed it out 3 days ago. Its stamped in very small letters at the base of the optic right above the clamp that holds the optic to the mounting rail of the weapon. Personally I'm not a religious person and don't mind that it's there. I understand that the verse being there could anger some. In any case Trijicon could write anything they want on the optic and i'd still prefer it to steel sights.